Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
Over the Christmas period, I’ve had the chance to check out two Christmas films that are currently available on Netflix in the UK. This includes the 2022 animated musical film ‘Scrooge: A Christmas Carol’ and the 2018 film ‘The Grinch’. These have been very fascinating films to check out and with varying measures.
With the 2022 film ‘Scrooge: A Christmas Carol’, this apparently was adapted from the 1970 film ‘Scrooge’, which starred Albert Finney in the role. This is something I didn’t know about beforehand. It’s intriguing to see how a musical version of Charles Dickens‘ famous Christmas story was handled.
There are the voices of Luke Evans as Scrooge, Olivia Colman as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Jessie Buckley as Isabel Fezziwig, Jonathan Pryce as Jacob Marley, Johnny Flynn as Bob Cratchit, James Cosmo as Mr. Fezziwig and Trevor Dion Nicholas as the Ghost of Christmas Present. All are excellent!
Whilst I enjoyed the familiar ‘Christmas Carol’ story in animated musical form, there were times when the musical numbers tended to be rather distracting, and I wanted to enjoy more of the story than the musical numbers. Also, I feel the musical numbers tended to be very extravagant indeed. 😐
The dialogue spoken by the characters also tended not to match with what would’ve been said in the original story by Charles Dickens. Maybe it’s a matter of perspective, as I’ve seen films like ‘Scrooge’ with Alistair Sim and ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ that borrowed dialogue from the book.
Very often, the dialogue said by characters like Scrooge and such would be said differently compared to what’s in the book. Still matching to the spirit of the book but worded differently. This is an observation on my part, but it was still a treat for me to check out the 2022 ‘Scrooge’ film on Netflix.
With the 2018 film ‘The Grinch’, it was fascinating to check out. Beforehand, I’d been accustomed to the live-action 2000 film ‘The Grinch’, starring Jim Carrey. The 2018 film is very different in that it’s a CGI animated film and it features a lot of voice talents like Benedict Cumberbatch playing the Grinch.
The 2018 film also looks and feels more colourful compared to the 2000 film, which had more dark undertones despite it being a comedy. I prefer the 2000 film with Jim Carrey, since it was the film version I grew up with the most and I find that film version more memorable compared to the 2018 film.
With that said, the 2018 film version isn’t bad. It was fascinating to see how ‘The Grinch’ story by Dr. Seuss was told in terms of how the Grinch developed as a character; from hating the Whos of Whoville at Christmas, to meeting Cindy Lou, to stealing Christmas, to how he treated his dog Max. 🙂
As well as Benedict Cumberbatch, the voice cast includes Cameron Seely as Cindy Lou Who; Rashida Jones as Donna Who, Cindy Lou’s mother; Kenan Thompson as Bricklebaum and Angela Lansbury as Mayor McGerkle. 🙂 This is actually Angela Lansbury’s last voice-acting role before her death in 2022.
Pharrell Williams is the narrator of the film. From watching the 2018 film, it could arguably be said that the Whos of Whoville are nicer to the Grinch compared to the ones in the 2000 film. Overall, the 2018 ‘Grinch’ film is fascinating to check out. I’m pleased I got to see the film on Netflix at last. 🙂
I’ve enjoyed checking out the 2022 ‘Scrooge: A Christmas Carol’ film and the 2018 ‘Grinch’ film on Netflix very much. I think I prefer the 2018 ‘Grinch’ film over the 2022 ‘Scrooge’ film. Both are very enjoyable as animated Christmas films as well as being pretty unique adaptations of the famous books. 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
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